By Scott Gilfoid: There’s a chance that unbeaten heavyweight contender Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller (18-0-1, 16 KOs) and Luis “King Kong” Ortiz (27-0, 23 KOs) could be facing each other in April or May in Miller’s hometown of Brooklyn, New York. Ortiz’s promoter Eddie Hearn has reached out to Miller’s management about the fight.
The fact that Hearn wants to match the 37-year-old Ortiz against Miller suggests that he believes he can win the fight. Ortiz has a lot of options available to him right now. He’s the mandatory for the WBA title, which is about to be fought over by Wladimir Klitschko and Anthony Joshua on April 29.
There is also the possibility that Ortiz could face Bermane Stiverne in a WBC heavyweight eliminator bout. The winner of that fight would take on WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder. If Ortiz takes the fight against the 6’4” Miller, he would be taking a considerable risk.
Joshua hasn’t even fought anyone as good as Miller since he turned pro. For Hearn to be willing to risk Ortiz against Miller, he has to believe that he’s got a good shot of winning it. That’s a pretty naïve outlook on this fight if you ask me, because Ortiz has not looked good lately in fights against David Allen and Malik Scott.
“I’ve been hearing about it for a while. Eddie Hearn reached out to my people and they said they wanted to put a deal together,” Miller said to skysports.com. “If it makes sense, we’ll definitely entertain it, if everybody is scared of Ortiz. I’ll be the first to tell you, I want the Ortiz fight.”
I’ll believe it when I see Miller and Ortiz inside the same ring with one another. I don’t see the fight happening, because it’s too much of a departure from the normal match-making by Hearn. He tends to make sure that he matches his fighters against opponents where they have an excellent chance of winning.
As far as I can tell, the only time where Hearn deviates from this practice is when he’s got a world champion in his stable that is forced to fight a talented mandatory challenger with IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook having to fight his mandatory Errol Spence Jr. Even then, Hearn has been pushing for Brook to vacate his IBF title and move up to 154.
The only way I see Hearn letting the 37-year-old Ortiz fight the 28-year-old Miller is if he firmly believes that he can beat him. If Hearn is absolutely certain that Ortiz will be too much for Miller, then I see him being open to making tht fight. Hearn has likely checked it out with Ortiz first by asking him his opinion of Miller.
If Ortiz thinks he can beat him and if Hearn trusts his judgment, then I see him possibly pulling the trigger on the fight. It would be a good move for Hearn to make if he wants to increase the popularity of Ortiz in a real hurry. It would help make a future Anthony Joshua vs. Ortiz fight a much bigger seller on Sky Box Office PPV in the UK than it would be if they were to make that fight next after the Joshua-Klitschko fight.
If Ortiz could prove himself against the young and brash Jarrell Miller, then the British boxing fans will be much more inclined to purchase the Joshua-Ortiz fight in high numbers on Sky Box Office PPV than if the fight were to be made next. Ortiz’s problem is he hasn’t beaten anyone good as of yet. Ortiz’s best wins have come against Tony Thompson, Bryant Jennings, Malik Scott and David Allen. Those are not good heavyweights in my opinion. Ortiz needs scalps like this: Jarrell Miller, Kubrat Pulev, Carlos Takam, Andy Ruiz Jr., David Haye, Dillian Whyte, Dereck Chisora, Alexander Povetkin and Bermane Stiverne. I don’t know that Ortiz can beat all of those guys.
I suspect that Ortiz can beat some of them, but definitely not all of them. Ortiz is more of a combination puncher rather than a huge puncher, and he seems to get tired when he’s forced to fight at a fast pace. If Ortiz gets hit with big shots from Jarrell Miller for any length of time, we could see him get old and get stopped. Some boxing fans already think that Ortiz is eight years older than his listed age of 37. They see Ortiz as a 45-year-old heavyweight. If he is that old, he’s going to have problems with Miller, because he’s young at 28 and a huge puncher, especially to the body. Miller is a big puncher.
“I want the Ortiz fight,” said Miller. “If it’s going to be in Brooklyn, down the block from the hospital where I was born, down the neighborhood from where I grew up, in my city, of course I want that fight. Why not?”
I don’t know if the Ortiz vs. Miller fight is going to happen. It’s good that Miller is talking up the Ortiz fight, but I still think Hearn will revert to form and keep Ortiz away from Miller until he either fights Stiverne in the WBC eliminator or faces the winner of the Joshua vs. Klitschko fight. I’m also not so sure that Hearn wants to let his cash cow Joshua fight Ortiz.
I think Hearn might be more comfortable having Ortiz fight Miller than then Stiverne in the WBC eliminator fight. If Ortiz can win both of those fights, then he would have a guaranteed title shot against Wilder for his WBC title. Think about it. If Ortiz beats Wilder, then Hearn would have another revenue stream with two heavyweight champions in his Matchroom Sport stable in Joshua and Ortiz. That would be more cash rolling in for Hearn. He wouldn’t have to risk Joshua’s hide by throwing him in with Ortiz and potentially seeing him taste defeat for the first time.
It’s one thing for Hearn to let Joshua fight an old 41-year-old Wladimir Klitschko, who can no longer pull the trigger on his punches, and it’s another thing for him to match him against Ortiz. Joshua could actually lose the fight to Ortiz, especially if he gets caught with one of the Cuban’s uppercuts that he likes to throw. Joshua can dish it out, but he doesn’t seem to be able to take the punishment nearly as well. We saw how Dillian Whyte was able to stagger Joshua with a simple left hook to the head, and Whyte isn’t a big puncher. Ortiz is definitely a better puncher than Whyte. That’s why I see Hearn doing his level best to keep Ortiz and Joshua as far as part as possible. That means that Ortiz may be put in with Miller followed by Stiverne rather than in being matched against the winner of the Joshua vs. Klitschko fight, which he has the ranking to take that fight if he puts Hearn’s feet to the fire to insist on him making that fight for him.
It was smart for Hearn to sign Ortiz recently. By making that move, Hearn can control the match-making for the Cuban and control the direction he goes with his career. If Hearn wants to steer Ortiz around Joshua to keep the 2012 Olympic gold medal from potentially losing to him, then he can definitely do that by matching him against the likes of Miller and Stiverne rather than against the winner of the Joshua-Klitschko fight.